If it is the contrast with Kennedy’s inaugural speech that depresses me most today, it is Lincoln’s January 1838 speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Ill., that haunts me most — particularly his warning that the only power that can destroy us is ourselves, by our abuse of our most cherished institutions, and by our abuse of one another.
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?” Lincoln asked. “I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide.”
林肯是美國最偉大的總統無疑。
問好周末.
